Tag: plants

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Plants

“It’s a jungle in here!”

I smiled, yes I do like plants. I signed the courier form and handed it back to him. The delivery man took a step back, then leaned forward, “I really like your apartment, I love plants!”

At the time I had a lot more plants than now, I was younger then. Over the years I’ve gradually reduced the number of my green friends, but I still couldn’t imagine not having any.

I’ve always had a dim view of people who do not like plants or animals. I like to surround myself with life.

My working and living spaces have always been like greenhouses. Plants are my meditation. Whenever I need a break I just sit and look at them. They are so still and yet so alive.

Unfortunately, once I was forced to get rid of all my plants at an office when a new Executive Director arrived. She also had our beautiful rooftop garden destroyed that volunteers and staff so lovingly tended. What kind of person does this? It broke a lot of hearts.

Of course my cat also likes plants, but for different reasons. He does fancy himself to be a jungle cat and hides in the foliage. What can be closer to heaven than sleeping in the dappled sunlight among plants and flowers, or nibbling on some fresh shoots of grass?

I need not get scientific to expound all the benefits of having plants in your environment. There is plenty of literature on that. For me, the benefit is joy. And joy is the only thing worth having.

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Love Mentors

The most astonishing thing in the world is the human-animal bond.

It is incredible that all living things respond to love, even plants.

Utterly fantastic that creatures so unlike us in every way; their features, habits, behaviours, can so readily bond with us. They can recognize us as an individual, come when we call and they so willingly and without judgement, return our affections. We are able to befriend predators, the dangerous, and the unlikely as easily as a cat or a dog. It does not mean such animals cease to be who they are, and as such we need exercise a healthy and cautious regard for their base natures, which many people have forgotten to their peril, it just means they can respond to us on a level they do not typically have with other animals.

I marvel at this, because love is something felt and acted on and not easily explained. It has an energy, just like all emotions. And humans have it most of all. The capacity for love we take for granted, but if you think about it, is mind-blowing.

When I was young a chrysalis was found on a plant my mom had bought. I watched that every day and talked to it. This sounds surreal, but when that monarch butterfly finally emerged, it was bonded to me. It would fly and follow me and alight on me where ever I went! So I guess at a very early age I was astounded and intrigued by this ability of creatures to bond to a human. Since then I have experienced this same phenomena countless times with all manner of animals and plants.

Is it not truly also amazing that animals can learn love from us, and sometimes extend that love to other creatures? Just incredible.

I have read that in many instances, the ability to kill is a learned behaviour in predators as opposed to being a given instinct. Which causes me to ponder the scripture in the Bible ‘The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock…’

Perhaps our role on this earth is to teach love and compassion to our fellow creatures and bring to pass scripture that claims animals will lie down and feed together and a child shall lead them. The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord (Love!)

Imagine if we could truly grasp what this means. If we could live this. Love is greater than we realize. I believe it not only encompasses the entire universe but is the reason why we are here, and things are as they are.

Scripture is Isaiah 65:25 and Isaiah 11:6-9

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Maple Heart

Every year, end of May, early June, the maple trees on our property rain down thousands of helicopter seeds.  Great quantities accumulate on the roads and pathways, creating a loud grating sound when rearranged by wind, shuffled through by feet and sadly, crushed under tires.

And every year I carefully select the plumpest, most ready seeds and plant them.  Typically I plant 20, or slightly more, my ability to limit myself dwindles as the end of the seed season does.  There is very little soil in the city, and I see potential lost in each seed that fails to find soft ground and perishes to the elements.  I wish I could give every seed the opportunity to experience being a tree, if only for a summer.

Great joy to watch them split their skins and send up miniature versions of their future selves within 3 days of touching soil.  In a few days they are already several inches tall and pushing hard to shed their shells.  I assist sometimes on those whose casings refuse to yield, and instantly two plump cotyledons spread out and seem to sigh.

Those fresh young shoots are ravenous for sunshine and in a short space of time I have my own miniature maple forest on my balcony.  I love to watch them grow.  Being pot bound they seldom get higher than a foot, but they have magnificence holding their leaves proudly out, two by two at 90 degree opposites.

I try to overwinter them, but they are wild things and need the outdoors.  One survived 3 years with me and was about 4 feet tall, but the rest perish.  Currently several have leafed out, which brings me joy commonly reserved for June.  Sadly they don’t make it, no matter how much love and attention I give them.  I dream of having a place to plant them outside, where onlookers would not question my activity or ultimately have me fined and hauled away!

My love for maple trees began at an early age.  At home a lovely sugar maple blessed my bedroom window view.  We had all kinds of trees, plants and flowers on a half acre of land.  Dad rescued a little red maple from a store and planted it on our front lawn.  I was out there every day watering and talking to it until it became one of the largest trees on our lot!

During a storm my bedroom view maple broke, and Dad was out there the next morning mending it.  He was worried I’d lose my tree!  He affixed two large diverging branches together with a bolt and chain so the wind would not further damage it.

My little pot bound home grown maples will never get that large, but I care for them dearly.  Summer is still a long ways off, sunshine scarce and the air in the apartment definitely not spring quality.  All of my plants suffer the winter blahs and some give up.  But I keep a careful eye on those tender young maples and hope they see one more season at least.